PM post in 2019 elections for party with most seats: Pawar
Stressing the need to strengthen the state-level alliances of non-NDA (National Democratic Alliance) parties, the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) chief Sharad Pawar on Monday said the single-largest party can claim the Prime Minister’s post after the general elections.
At the same time, he also praised Congress president Rahul Gandhi for clarifying that he is not in the race for the post of Prime Minister.
Pawar made the statement after holding the party’s core committee meeting and meeting senior leaders to discuss poll strategy for 2019 elections.
“...Let elections happen and let us together remove the BJP government. We will then sit together and decide. Leader from the party with maximum number of MPs can be the Prime Ministerial candidate,” Pawar told the mediapersons. He added
MUMBAI:
that the Congress president too has agreed to this. “I am happy that the Congress president has made it clear that he is not driven by Prime Ministerial ambitions,” said the NCP chief. He said the general elections held in 1977 after the Emergency imposed by the then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi and in 2004 when Atal Bihari Vajpayee was the Prime Minister were perfect examples to the questions being raised by some people on the alternative to Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
“Today’s scenario is similar to the situation before the general elections held in 1977 after the Emergency. No one could have thought of defeating the then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi but she was defeated without having any one leader as the face of the Opposition. Janata Party was formed later and Morarji Desai was elected as the leader of the alliance,” Pawar said.